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Social Media Spotlight

As you all are aware, we recently made the decision to move from the friendly confines of WordPress and host our blog on an independent server, thereby allowing us more freedom both in what we can offer and how we managed our site. And, as you all are also aware, we encountered our share of issues in doing so, from stale DNS caches to missing posts to deleted subscriptions. Minus a few outstanding tweaks, we are essentially back to where we were pre-migration, and look forward to finally being able to provide the added content at the heart of our move.

Besides challenging our patience, last week’s events served to reinforce how important it is to integrate all of your SocMed platforms. It’s true that our various accounts generally focus on different aspects of ORA’s activities – Our blog is for substantive posts both inside and outside of JHSPH, our Twitter feed is for short bursts of information and links to interesting articles, and Facebook provides more informal content. However, last week we were able to alert readers to glitches with BloggingORA through both outlets, and, had the situation persisted, we would have provided any regular blog-specific content on either platform so that any damage was minimized.

(Additionally, though still in its early stages, we would have been able to disseminate relevant information through our group on LinkedIn.)

Many of our Research Administration brethren have looked to Facebook for their entry into Social Media, but few have a second platform, be it a blog or a Twitter account. While these accounts require additional maintenance to be viable and successful, they do provide a secondary point from which you can keep faculty and other school personnel up to date with pressing information that you otherwise would have posted on Facebook. Consequently, even if you don’t have the resources to Tweet every other hour, we experienced firsthand how valuable these secondary accounts can be, and recommend that other institutions at least investigate the possibility of creating accordingly.

Spotlight

Our Social Media Monday spotlight this week falls on The University of Arkansas Research Administration.

When we first got our blog and Facebook up and rolling, we were predominantly focused on providing information to JHU followers and faculty. But we were galvanized when University of Arkansas became our first ‘big’ follow; someone outside of Hopkins was reading us! If we weren’t so elated we probably would have deactivated everything out of fear that the outside world had found us.

In any event, RAP does an amazing job of sharing information and events with their school, as they participate in fundraisers, post research policy changes and respond to Frequently Asked Questions on their Facebook page. In short, if you were going to start an office Facebook page tomorrow, theirs would be a great template to follow! They are concise, informative and fun, and we look forward to interacting with them more in the future.